Prince Charles' Life in Photos

Prince Charles

Being the heir to the throne isn't always easy. Prince Charles was just 9 years old when his mother made him Prince of Wales. He heard the announcement on the radio at his prep school, Cheam, where many of the boys enjoyed bullying the young prince.

AP Photo

Prince Charles

Being the heir to the throne isn't always easy. Prince Charles was just 9 years old when his mother made him Prince of Wales. He heard the announcement on the radio at his prep school, Cheam, where many of the boys enjoyed bullying the young prince.

AP Photo

Prince Charles

Charles was formally invested as Prince of Wales on July 1, 1969, a few months before his 21st birthday. After graduating from Cambridge University, he went on to serve in the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy.

AP Photo

Wedding

It seemed like a scene out of a fairy tale when Prince Charles, 32, married Lady Diana Spencer, just 20, on July 29, 1981. But Diana was not ready for the pressures of royal life.

AP Photo

Prince Charles and family 1982

Charles and Diana became the parents of Prince William on June 21, 1982. Two years later, Prince Harry was born on Sept. 15, 1984. The couple's marriage went quickly downhill after that. Charles thought Diana emotionally unstable; she was suspicious of Camilla Parker Bowles.

AP Photo

Diana funeral

Diana, Princess of Wales, was killed in a car crash in Paris on Aug. 31, 1997, a year after her divorce from Charles. The royal family fared badly in the public outpouring of grief and rage. Shown here are Prince William and Prince Harry, ages 15 and 12 at the time, as well as Prince Charles watching Diana's funeral procession through London.

AP Photo

Charles and Camilla

In the years after Diana's death, Charles devoted time to his sons -- and gradually went more public with his relationship with Camilla Parker Bowles. In February 2005, after three decades together, they announced they would marry.

AP Photo

The Duchess of Cornwall and the Prince of Wales

The Duchess of Cornwall and the Prince of Wales visit Ground Zero, the site of the former World Trade Center in New York. This was the royal couple's first stop during their eight-day American tour in 2005.

Arthur Edwards/AP Photo

The Duchess of Cornwall and the Prince of Wales

Prince Charles and Camilla view the center stone they unveiled in New York's Hanover Square for the British Memorial Garden in 2005 to commemorate the 67 British victims of the 9/11 attacks.

Richard Drew/AP Photo

The Duchess of Cornwall and the Prince of Wales

After visiting Ground Zero, Prince Charles met United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan at U.N. headquarters in New York in 2005.

Mary Altaffer/AP Photo

Prince Charles' Boyhood Photos

Britain's Prince Charles (R) dances with Lisa Shannon (L) in a 'dance-o-mat' gap filler as he and his wife Camilla (not pictured) visited Oxford Terrace in Christchurch, N.Z. on Nov. 16, 2012. Charles and his wife Camilla were on the last leg of a tour to mark Queen Elizabeth II's diamond jubilee. Check out his life in photos in the next slides.